She is startin’ to damage my calm…

Someone recently told me that I shouldn’t use the word hate when referring to people because it’s too strong of a word.

Why not?

The way I see it me using the word hate is absolutely justified. I used to be a very cheery, optimistic and down-right pleasant individual many many years ago. I could even venture to say I was naive. A babe in the proverbial woods so to speak. It’s people that have slowly but persistently been breaking down my sense of kindness so why shouldn’t I hate people in general?

Sure. You can argue that maybe I’m just just a complainer or morbidly pessimistic. That might be true if I didn’t constantly try to see the best in any situation. I’m helpful and compassionate by nature. I know that without a doubt because it actually does make me happy to help others and make them happy. Every time that little voice in the back of my mind says “Don’t do it. You’re just going to set yourself up for a big fall.” I do it anyway. Sometimes my selflessness is met with mutual kindness but more often than not people just use that as an opportunity to take advantage of a good thing. Perhaps people have become so jaded that they can’t even see genuine acts of kindness anymore and its an automatic reaction to try to get what you can before they’re taken advantage of. Or maybe Darwin is correct in that it’s survival of the fittest and that generosity and compassion translate to weakness?

It’s depressing to sit back and feel myself regress further and further from being a nice person. All too often now I find myself holding back from doing something helpful or being proactive and that’s just not right. I’m devolving into a sarcastic, cynical bastard and while it’s not what I aspire to be I’m getting far too comfortable with the controls.Do unto others as they would do unto you. The Golden Rule. I’m pretty certain that concept was floating around well before someone decided to put it into a religious tome. It’s only common sense… or uncommon sense as me and a few others like to refer to it as.

If common sense were so common then we wouldn’t have so many idiots lurking around therefore it is uncommon sense.

That mantra comes with one giant flaw. It’s great to use it as a guide to promote mutual well being but it also works just as effectively in contrast. Treat a good person like crap constantly and they in turn do the same. It becomes a competition to see who can inflict more damage. No one wants to be the person who sits there and gets shat on constantly so they retaliate in some failed attempt at trying even the odds. The process cycles over and over until that once good person is now a bastard like the rest. Some say the only way to combat that is to continue to be good and show kindness, compassion and understanding but how effective is that really? How much mental fortitude do people have to have in order to break the will of oblivious idiots?

Bah.

Enough of the pity party. I’ll continue to take the high road until things change. Unfortunately the only way things will ever change if a global apocalypse happens and throws us back to the Conan days.